Highlights from Early 2022: What CISOs Are Talking About


Community Blog
Written by Laurel Hiestand

JULY 12, 2022

Security leaders across North America have come together with each other and trusted vendor partners across a busy 6 months of virtual and in-person engagements. The Evanta CISO Community has gathered 29 times this year across eight executive summits, seven inner circle dinners, 13 virtual town halls and one virtual boardroom. 

These engagements centered on the highest priority challenges faced by security leaders, with the goal of making connections and defining new strategies to solve these shared issues. 

Take a look at some of the highest rated sessions at CISO Executive Summits:

  • Third-Party Cyber Risk — Zero-Day Findings and Mitigation 
    In this informative presentation, Bluevoyant explored how to identify all third parties impacted by zero-day vulnerabilities and shared strategies to guide mitigation efforts. Success can lie within the framework of the enterprise attack surface consisting of the vendor, supplier and partner ecosystem.

A security leader at a multinational corporation had this to say about the session:
“Insightful. Third-party risk definitely needs more attention and focus on prioritization and remediation.”

  • Leader-Level Investment, Team-Level Buy In 
    Security leaders gathered for an interactive brainstorming session on how to engage, encourage and retain their top talent. Knowing that change begins at the leadership level, they left the session with practical tips on key retention practices they can leverage to stave off burnout and increase engagement.

A global director at a pharmaceutical company shared his key takeaways:
“Best session of the day. ‘Take care of the people before the mission,’ ‘Leaders helping people understand the value of their work.’”

  • Your Security Analysts are Leaving – Here’s Why
    During his session, the CEO of Tines drove a data-informed discussion around what’s preventing security teams from doing their best work. By learning the tasks that are most time-consuming and least enjoyed, leaders can break down cases of burnout and identify how to improve retention through automation. 

Feedback from a CISO at a top university:
“Great insights based on credible data. Excellent tips that I can immediately use to enhance my security program.”

  • What Are We Doing? ⁠— The Current and Future Cyber Insurance Climate
    With the cyber insurance premiums rising and the application process becoming more complicated, leaders came together to share different perspectives on the changing industry, troubleshoot concerns and candidly discussed the struggles and benefits of investing in cyber insurance.

An information and privacy officer at an entertainment organization shared their thoughts:
“Great information, very eye opening. Very timely and informative materials provided.”

Interestingly, the topic of cyber insurance is not captured in our annual leadership perspective survey, but the topic came up again and again during the hundreds of qualitative interviews we conduct with our Governing Body members. Because of this direct feedback, we hosted several informative brainstorming sessions tackling the topic head-on, giving a safe space for security leaders to directly and candidly share their challenges and strategies for success.
 

Most Read Articles

Here is what CISOs were most interested in reading in our Community Insights library:

  1. 2022 CISO Leadership Perspectives. Cybersecurity threats are now viewed as a serious risk to the business – not simply a problem for security or IT. As CISOs take an enterprise approach to risk management, this infographic explores what 800+ CISOs were saying about their most important priorities for 2022.
  2. The CISO Business Leader: What’s Ahead for CISOs in 2022. This blog had a forward-looking view of 2022 and shared the 3 themes for CISOs that have a common thread: adding broader risk management and business enablement capabilities to their plates.
  3. What Are 10 Trends for CISOs in 2022? As results from our annual Leadership Perspective Survey came in, this blog explored what CISOs are focusing on, challenged by and where they plan to invest their resources this year.


Peer-to-Peer Meetings

Evanta has expanded Peer-to-Peer meetings at Executive Summits across all markets this season. Over 200 CISOs connected one-on-one to share their most pressing priorities and challenges. CISOs continue to see value from these connections, sharing:

I very much enjoyed speaking with all of the peers I met with, and we are connected on LinkedIn now also. I was able to validate some challenges I'm grappling with to help in setting my next course.”

This is my favorite part of the summit!”

Great to meet an industry peer.”


As we wrap up this season of strategic gatherings, CISOs have shared that they were thrilled to connect with their community and are eager to connect with their peers again soon.

Great summit – my first participation, but certainly not my last.”
– Nordic CISO Participant

Interactive and valuable in aspects of networking, sharing cyber challenges, meeting top vendors, complementing my knowledge.”
- Chicago CISO Governing Body Member

Excellent event, great discussions in boardroom meetings, networking opportunities, venue, and overall great setup.”
- Southern California CISO Governing Body Member

This was my first time attending an Evanta event, and the quality of the event was outstanding compared to other conferences that I have attended in the past. The openness of the attendees was amazing, and the session content was of high quality and relevant to my work.”
- Toronto CISO Participant


Evanta CISO Communities are continuing to build compelling agendas for gatherings in the second half of the year. Please check out your community page and register for upcoming programs.
 

Laurel Hiestand headshot

Laurel Hiestand

Content Director at Evanta, a Gartner Company